good news as long as they weren't tourists.....bancoduo - 10-17-2006 at 08:08 AM
hoarhay Hank has always been a man of honor.DENNIS - 10-17-2006 at 01:05 PM
Is everybody here familiar with Operation White Tiger?
It's deals with some of the activities of that Hank family. Just a bunch of real nice folks.
Google --- Operation White Tigerpargo - 10-17-2006 at 01:50 PM
Quote:
Originally posted by surfer jim
"...only 9 killed in T.J. so far in October...."
good news as long as they weren't tourists.....
Only 9
huh?, not bad...If you're comparing to Iraq CRICKEY!!
Tijuana's mayor beckons visitors
BajaNews - 10-17-2006 at 01:56 PM
Hank says violence isn't aimed at tourists
By Sandra Dibble and Anna Cearley
October 17, 2006
Tijuana's mayor asserted yesterday that the city is safe for tourists, saying they are not affected by a recent rash of violence following the arrest
of a suspected drug kingpin.
“The city is as safe as San Diego for any visitor,” Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon said in San Diego, at a news conference called at the downtown offices of
the San Diego Association of Governments, or SANDAG. “The incidents there have been very well publicized, making everyone believe it's a dangerous
city. In fact, it's not.”
The hiring of hundreds of police officers, the installation of video cameras, the purchases of new patrol cars and weapons have all contributed to
increasing safety in the city, Hank said. Tijuana has invested more than $20 million to fight crime since he took office in December 2004, he said.
The city has also taken measures to remove corrupt officers, said Luis Javier Algorri Franco, Tijuana's top police official, who accompanied the
mayor.
The news conference occurred more than two weeks after the regional planning agency prohibited staff members from joining a Sept. 27 tour of Tijuana
out of concern for their safety. A spokeswoman said at the time “we won't be going down there for meetings in the near future.”
Yesterday, SANDAG Executive Director Gary Gallegos said the prohibition had been a one-time event, involving a tour sponsored by the California
Biodiversity Council. “If it was broader than that, then our apologies; we didn't articulate it correctly,” Gallegos said, adding that SANDAG
employees were traveling to Tijuana this week.
Hank's statements come a month after U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza warned of “near lawlessness in some parts of our border region.” The rise in drug
violence “has put a strain on travel and tourism, on the business and investment climate and on the bilateral relationship,” Garza said.
Charles Smith, spokesman with the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana, deferred to the ambassador's advisory message when asked about the current situation in
Tijuana.
“At the same time we aren't telling people not to come to Tijuana,” he said. “We are telling them you got to keep your wits about you in any
environment you don't know well.”
A total of 44 people were killed in Tijuana last month, the most violent month of this year in this city of about 1.3 million, according to statistics
from the state Attorney General's Office.
Hank and others attribute the rise in violence to the after-effect of U.S. authorities arresting suspected kingpin Javier Arellano Félix in August.
Relations between Tijuana and Mexico's Federal Attorney General's Office grew especially strained last month after the city called for military
intervention to control crime, and the Attorney General's Office blamed the spike in violence on widespread corruption in the municipal police force.
Hank said yesterday that violent crimes have declined sharply in the city in recent weeks. Statistics from Baja California authorities also indicate
the worst may have passed, at least for now. During the first half of October, nine people have been killed.
Hank said tourism in the region has not suffered as a result of the recent violence, and that hotel occupancy rates have not fallen.
But Nora Bringas, a researcher at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte think tank, said Mexican communities have been suffering from a stagnation in U.S.
tourism borderwide since 2001, a result of heightened U.S. fears about security, combined with increased reports about crime.
Tijuana is plagued with drug violence that, in part, is a result of geography. Much of the drugs headed into the United States pass through this major
transportation corridor.
“The biggest drug user in the world is the United States,” Hank said.
Differentiating between the perception of violence in Tijuana and the reality isn't always easy. Drug violence is usually aimed at those involved in
criminal activities, but sometimes ordinary residents get caught in the crossfire.
José Maria Ramos, an investigator with the Department of Public Administration Studies at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte, said Hank's administration
has made efforts to reduce crime, but politics also colors crime's perception.
“For the mayor, who aspires to be a candidate for governor, he will try and show a good image that he's doing something in Tijuana because his critics
will say that if he wasn't able to resolve the problem of security in Tijuana, how will he be able to resolve it in the state,” he said.
Three weeks ago, policemen with rifles and shotguns escorted a group of California officials to a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Tijuana. An ambulance
trailed along -- just in case.
On Monday, Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon declared that his city -- where headless bodies have been found dumped, where kidnappings for ransom are not
uncommon, where five policemen have been shot dead recently -- is "as safe as San Diego."
Violence flared in Tijuana after the arrest of suspected drug kingpin Francisco Javier Arellano Felix. The California Biodiversity Council, a group of
state and local environmental officials, cut short and nearly canceled a recent Tijuana field trip. Several officials from the San Diego Association
of Governments, a regional planning agency, weren't allowed to cross the border on that trip because of fears about their safety.
The targeted killings left some Tijuana residents on edge, and put political pressure on Hank to react. Gabriel Camerena Salinas, chairman of the
Tijuana Convention and Visitors Bureau, said tourism dropped between 15 and 20 percent in the two weekends following SANDAG's action. (It is up 5
percent overall this year.)
Monday, Hank sought to allay any lingering fears about his city. It is the second time in 13 months that Tijuana officials have called a press
conference to polish their city's image.
Surrounded by Tijuana tourism and public safety officials, Hank talked at length about his city's drug problem and the violence it has spurred.
Hank said 120 federal police officers arrived in Tijuana a week ago. Cameras have been added in troublesome neighborhoods, he said, noting that the
city's police force has grown from 1,600 officers to 2,300 during his tenure. Some 200 cameras are operating throughout the city, Hank said. And more
than $18 million has been invested in new equipment for officers, he said.
But in making his points, Hank at times misrepresented fact.
Hank said only one American had been killed in Tijuana in the last two years. In the September incident he referred to, a 30-year-old American woman
was killed in crossfire in a Tijuana restaurant. She was dining in a neighborhood where some Tijuana residents say they are afraid to tread -- not in
a tourist-laden section of the city.
While Hank claimed her death as the city's only "incident" involving an American citizen, 14 Americans died in Tijuana homicides between 2004 and June
2005, according to statistics kept by the U.S. State Department. Twelve others have died in suicides or accidents in that time.
Hank said confusion existed over a Sept. 14 warning from Tony Garza, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico. Garza warned about increasing violence in Mexico,
noting that drug-related violence had killed 1,500 Mexicans this year. Garza's remarks specifically focused on Nuevo Laredo, which sits across the
border from Laredo, Texas.
While Garza said that "drug cartels, aided by corrupt officials, reign unchecked" in many border towns, Hank noted that Tijuana was not specifically
mentioned.
But the city was referenced in a travel warning also issued Sept. 14, which noted that U.S. citizens had been involved in random shootings on major
highways outside the city.
Hank acknowledged that "a lot of bodies" had been found in the last six months.
"OK, if that is insecurity, it would mean they're killed there (on the street), and they're not," Hank said. "They're killed in a home, in a ranch, in
a warehouse, anywhere but on the street. They're dumped on the street in order for the other cartel to realize what is happening. But that doesn't
make it insecure."
Asked about the recurring kidnappings-for-ransom that have frightened businesspeople, Hank said that the city had been seeing a slow drop during the
last two weeks. He said he was unsure whether the city had seen the last of its targeted killings.
The State Department has not rescinded its travel warning. A consular official speaking on the condition of anonymity Monday said any debate about
Tijuana's safety is premature.
"I hope it's true, but I think it's a little too early to say," said the official at the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana. "I don't know how anyone can say
that two weeks is a trend."
The recent violence in Tijuana and the reactions it prompted in both countries -- fear here and finger-pointing in Mexico -- reflects the complexity
of dropping a blanket characterization upon a city of 1.5 million people.
Some who know Tijuana say the city was never the Baghdad it was described as three weeks ago. Nor is it the Eden that Hank portrays.
Oscar Romo, one of the organizers of the California Biodiversity Council tour, frequently travels throughout some of Tijuana's poorest neighborhoods.
He said the city hasn't changed, but that some San Diegans have panicked about something "that is not that huge."
"I haven't felt unsafe," he said. "But I think that the community is trying to send a message to the government that things are not totally under
control. It's not that we feel unsafe there -- it's that crime has been more apparent lately. I don't think a thing has changed."pargo - 10-17-2006 at 02:12 PM
For me it's not so much what happens in TJ per say. It's more about the transpeninsular highway where I find the news of violence the most disturbing.
Generally I try not to stop in TJ proper but just quickly pass by on my way further south. What are they doing to address the violence issue there?JESSE - 10-17-2006 at 02:49 PM
"Prove it!"
Jorge Hank's response to a declaration by Cabeza de Vaca, Mexico's attorney general in wich he said that Jorge Hank's administration speciafically
Tijuana Police are the main protectors of the Tijuana cartel.David K - 10-17-2006 at 06:22 PM
Jorge Hank when I saw him last year... pictured here with my web host's esposa. The one thing I remembered was the armed bodygaurds that surrounded
him! This was during a VIP day in Tijuana to promote the return of tourists!
